When the switch flipped,
And your eyes flashed back in time,
Mere moments after I finished writing the epilogue,
But not before you got a few last shots in,
I knew all I needed to know.
I inhaled all that laid dormant in my soul.
Breathed the familiar smoke
Deep into the dark pit you carved into my rich soil,
And filled my lungs with the sour, but patient truth.
No longer the vibrant, radiant thing you discovered.
The hidden gem full of lifetimes of stories.
Now, I stood stripped to the studs,
Robbed of all character and historical significance.
And the worst part?
It happened instantaneously,
Upon entry, in fact.
Long before I’d had enough.
Sometimes, the light just takes time to leave our eyes.
I know now that in every joyful moment
I was nothing more than an opportunity.
Not promised, but assumed.
And as soon as your assumption met my intuition,
Not a second after she found her voice,
You ripped me into binaries and were onto the next.
A fossil of “the good times,” never to be exposed.
Sure, I believe you see that I’m valuable.
But I am not convinced you ever knew my worth.
The proof is in the seed that split your soul
Between Phobos and Deimos on a razor’s edge.
The same seed that sold you
A crown of composure and righteousness.
With swiftness and ease, you called it respect,
And carried on your narrative
Without so much as a glance before the leap.
I hate to tell you, but you didn’t love me.
You were in love with the opportunity
You wrote in place of my name.
In the end, I can deal with that.
I’ve been dealt worse.
But to the disappointment of you and the like,
I will never be a vessel to fill with a role.
The thing about women like me, like us,
Who have ripped ourselves away from the role
To pay for the freedom of belonging first to ourselves…
We will never be swayed without substance.
We are immune to empty words.
We will forever be our own sanctuary.
Those who come in claiming the outlier
Better be prepared for the storm,
Not of our ruin, but of our power.
They will be deeply dissatisfied
With our eyes,
Which see only the truth.
They will be flustered by our
Immovable strength,
Rooted deep and planted by hand,
With soil beneath our fingernails
To show for it.
They will tremble as they present the illusion
They’ve been able to pass as gifts to the blind.
They will flinch at the rejection
Of their words without action.
They will crumble under the weight of our ashes,
And burn up in our resurrection.
We will devour the empty ones
Who refuse to venture deeper.
Deep enough to find themselves
In order to know their balance
Before cashing in like a fool,
Only to come up short.
What an opportunity they’ll miss...
Though I will admit,
It was my doubt that demanded a seat at the table,
And it was me who allowed it to stay.
It’s true, that would’ve poisoned any hope eventually.
But if you hear one thing from me, from this,
Let it be that it was not my doubt,
Whose real name is perception,
That unraveled this story in the end.
Nor was it the potential you saw in me,
Or that which I saw in you.
It was the inhumane way you
Tore each feather from my wings.
It was the cruelty with which
You plucked every petal from my spirit.
It was the taste of gasoline in my throat
From all the unmet promises.
It was the match you lit under my patience,
The cuts you carved into my compassion,
And the shame you wielded unrelentingly.
And still, it is the willful ignorance with which you carry the book
Across the un-scorched side of the hill I'll die on.
Clawing at my insides, the truth demands the sun.
Not for revenge. Or defamation.
But to free my mind from torment,
So I can see clearly again.
I hope the truth will spare your future, too.
If you are brave enough to see its face.
But know that it was not my softness that dug this chasm.
It was your unwillingness to hold it gently.
Know that it was not my inability to play the role.
It was your failure to recognize that I have no understudy.
Know that it was not my refusal to fight.
It was your determination to be the only victor.
What little you see of me…
Your greatest opportunity.
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